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Friday, April 27, 2007

House cleaning

I included Hitchens in the Links for a long time because I admire his humanist values and we both share as personal heroes Orwell and Paine; and although I disagree with his views about the "war on terror" I still enjoy reading him and respect his skill as a writer and orator. But what has started to bother me about Hitchens is that he has become careless with his facts, and has begun to start viewing facts and history through the prism of his current politics. I'm thinking specifically of this post from Dispatches From the Culture Wars where Brayton takes Hitchens to task for attempting to portray Thomas Jefferson as an atheist even though it's quite evident that he was a deist.

But this is the ultimate reason why Hitchens had to go from the links. That is a link to a Slate article Hitchens wrote two years ago praising the appointment of Paul Wolfowitz to the head of the World Bank. Given the current scandal surrounding Wolfowitz I simply can not keep Hitchens in the links anymore, as I think his credibility at this point on such matters is about nill. I will still be reading Hitchens on a regular basis (when I get back to reading things on a regular basis, that is) but I think the Link would be better filled with something that has more educational value.

3 Quarks Daily had previously been a blog recommendation of the day. The site provides an interesting round-up of info on art, politics, philosophy, pop culture, etc. Check it out and see what you think.